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I remember I "somehow" got a copy of the first Banco Nearfest performance and mentioned it somewhere (not here, as I wasn't on this board back then) and you asked me a similar question at the time Mine wasn't a soundboard though, and I ended up deleting it because the sound wasn't very good and was nothing like how I remembered hearing it in the theater. Probably an audience recording of some type I would guess, but I don't remember who gave it to me, let alone the details of the recording.

In any case, if I could have one full Nearfest show with good sound, that would be the one I'd want.

I remember I "somehow" got a copy of the first Banco Nearfest performance and mentioned it somewhere (not here, as I wasn't on this board back then) and you asked me a similar question at the time Mine wasn't a soundboard though, and I ended up deleting it because the sound wasn't very good and was nothing like how I remembered hearing it in the theater. Probably an audience recording of some type I would guess, but I don't remember who gave it to me, let alone the details of the recording.

In any case, if I could have one full Nearfest show with good sound, that would be the one I'd want.

Well, back then, Studio M was still doing the rebroadcast online via RealAudio. It could have been a copy of that.

This reminded me that I ALSO had that one on my hard drive years ago, but deleted it for the same reasons. Oh well. Yeah, there are probably several performances I would want if they were available, but that Banco one would be my first choice.

I approached the HTM guys about a live album from that show a long time ago, but not everyone in the band was happy with the performance.

That's too bad. I remember that being a really good show. At one point, I yelled out, "Hey, Stanley! Where's your doubleneck?!". Back in the 70's, he had a doubleneck built by Paul Reed Smith, one of the first that Paul made, in fact. So I was expecting to see him play that guitar, or at least a reasonable facsimile. Stan replied back, something to the effect of "OH, it was split in two and reborn as two new guitars". I heard years that Paul asked if there was any way he could get the doubleneck back, apparently he regretted letting it go, so they arranged a swap, Paul got the doubleneck, Stan got two new PRS guitars (the ones, I believe, he used at NEARfest, both tiems, in fact).

Another memory about Happy The Man. Cornering Stanley that morning, either before or after the first band, and handing him my LP copy of Crafty Hands. He seemed shocked to see it! "Where did you get this?! It's not a cut out, and it's legit!" (apparently, there were a lot of Taiwan pressed pirate copies of that album). I kinda dug I was able to take him by surprise with that.

^^^
Great stuff. Damn I feel bad missing that. But at least I remember seeing them back in the day at the old Cellar Door in DC after their eponymous album came out on Arista. I think I remember that double neck guitar as well but I had no idea it was a PRS. Good times.

There are more stars in the visible universe than there are grains of sand on planet earth.

^^^
Great stuff. Damn I feel bad missing that. But at least I remember seeing them back in the day at the old Cellar Door in DC after their eponymous album came out on Arista. I think I remember that double neck guitar as well but I had no idea it was a PRS. Good times.

Wow, you're lucky! I'd have liked to have seen them back then. I've got a whole stash of bootlegs from the 70's, and mostly from the Washington DC area, and one of my Facebook friends was like checking off which of the shows she actually saw (something like 7 out of 9, I think it was).

As I said, the guitars Stan and Rick played were among the first, I believe, that Paul had built, before the company we now know as PRS really existed. At this stage, Paul was building one off custom guitars for whichever clients he could get. I think this might have even been before he built the first couple guitars he made for Carlos Santana or Al DiMeola (who I believe were his first two super high profile clients). .

Back in the late 90's, I think i twas, a coffee table book was published on PRS guitars, and one of Paul's long time employees is quoted as saying the he became aware of Paul's work because of Happy The Man. He says something to the effect that he was "enamored" with HTM, and that's how he ended going to work for/with Paul for something like 25 years. When I mentioned that to Stan, when Oblivion Sun played at NEARfest, he said he knew exactly who I was talking about, and that the guy had, at the time, just recently retired from PRS! Unfortunately, I've never owned the book, so I don't remember the guy's name.

^^^ Some artists are just overly fussy about their own work. I saw HTM in a large Brewpub in Lowell, MA, in 2003 or 2004. They knocked my socks off. One of the best shows I've seen in my life. Top 20 if not top 10 lifetime concert. They had Dave Rosenthal on keys (the guy from Rainbow??!) and Joe Bergamini on drums. I wish I had a copy of that show. I believe they did a small tour that year for the "Muse Awakens" album.

I wonder if they would have considered those performances better than 2000? And if some live material from that era might ever see some sort of release? Probably not, I know, due to the economics, but we can hope.

^^^ Some artists are just overly fussy about their own work. I saw HTM in a large Brewpub in Lowell, MA, in 2003 or 2004. They knocked my socks off. One of the best shows I've seen in my life. Top 20 if not top 10 lifetime concert. They had Dave Rosenthal on keys (the guy from Rainbow??!) and Joe Bergamini on drums. I wish I had a copy of that show. I believe they did a small tour that year for the "Muse Awakens" album.

I wonder if they would have considered those performances better than 2000? And if some live material from that era might ever see some sort of release? Probably not, I know, due to the economics, but we can hope.

I spoke with them about a live album to be combined with a reissue of The Muse Awakens as a two-for, and, eventually, it just wasnít gonna happen due to an inability of all members to agree on what was acceptable for release and what wasnít.

This was 3-4 years ago. Canít imagine a physical release being practical economically now....

I saw HTM in a large Brewpub in Lowell, MA, in 2003 or 2004. They knocked my socks off. One of the best shows I've seen in my life. Top 20 if not top 10 lifetime concert. They had Dave Rosenthal on keys (the guy from Rainbow??!)

Yes, Ros played with Rainbow during the Joe Lynn Turner years. He's on Straight Between The Eyes, Bent Out Of Shape, and the parts of Finyl Vinyl that were derived from the respective tours for those two albums. He might be on some of the studio tracks on that one too, but I'm not sure at the moment.

Ros has played with a lot of people over the years. For many years, he played keyboards in Billy Joel's band. The reason he got the Happy The Man gig was that he was a massive fan who had actually transcribed all the songs off the two Arista albums, back when he was attending the Berklee School Of Music (at the time, incidentally, he was in a band with Steve Vai and I think Stu Hamm, I think that might have been the band on the demo tape that Vai sent to Zappa).

Anyway, so at some point in the 80's, Ros had gotten friendly with Stan Whitaker and Frank Wyatt, I believe it was. Ros apparently saw their post-HTM band in a small club. He brought his transcription notebook with him, and when he showed it to Frank and Stan, their eyes popped out, because they'd never seen anything like that, i.e. transcriptions of Happy The Man music.

So when it became apparent that Kit Watkins wasn't interested in doing the HTM reunion, Ros was like the first person they called. Ros said he never got to see the band live back in the day, so his very first HTM concert, he was actually onstage!

Ros has played with a lot of people over the years. For many years, he played keyboards in Billy Joel's band. The reason he got the Happy The Man gig was that he was a massive fan who had actually transcribed all the songs off the two Arista albums, back when he was attending the Berklee School Of Music (at the time, incidentally, he was in a band with Steve Vai and I think Stu Hamm

Randy Coven was the bassist. Like Vai, he was from Long Island NY, and studied with Jeff Berlin (also from LI).

Randy made a few records in the 80s/90s on the Guitar for the Practicing Musician label and ended up playing with Yngwie Maalmsteen.

randy passed away in 2014 at the age of 54.

Incidentally, I saw the Randy Coven Band open up for the Group Stone Tiger ( Bill Frisell/ Percy Jones) in NYC 1981 and they were fantastic.

So when it became apparent that Kit Watkins wasn't interested in doing the HTM reunion, Ros was like the first person they called. Ros said he never got to see the band live back in the day, so his very first HTM concert, he was actually onstage!

Dave is a super nice guy. I kept in touch with him for a while after their NF performance. He even got my wife and I backstage at a Billy Joel/Elton John concert. We met up with Dave and his beautiful wife, but no Billy or Elton. And I really wanted to ask Elton about his days with the Gentle Giant guys.

How many shows were released on audio CD? I can only remember Le Orme, Forgas, and Thinking Plague. Anyone has the list?

Forgas was DVD only, at least on the physical release.
I can think of DFA (2000), for which I wrote liner notes, and FM (DVD). There's some of Guapo's performance on their CD/DVD release. The Miriodor performance appeared as a live bonus CD on one of their albums. Probably more ?

Forgas was DVD only, at least on the physical release.
I can think of DFA (2000), for which I wrote liner notes, and FM (DVD). There's some of Guapo's performance on their CD/DVD release. The Miriodor performance appeared as a live bonus CD on one of their albums. Probably more ?

I have that DFA, I bought it personally from Leonardo at the following year's fest. I also remember there were releases:
Strawbs (which I believe had a few songs missing, because the band didn't like their performances)
FM (you can hear my voice on that one)
Nektar (half assed, as it was, but i guess it wasn't the band's fault)
Djam Karet (you can hear my voice on this one as well)
Steve Hackett (though left out his introduction to In Memoriam, which he dedicated to John Entwistle, who had passed away just a few days earlier)

I believe Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic released their set, but I never got around to getting it (nor did I get the Miriodor). ANother band that put out their set was Hidria Spacefolk. I have this vague memory of seeing a CD of the Nexus set from 2000, but I believe that might have been a bootleg.

Can't remember who else released shows, that haven't been mentioned already.

BTW, whatever happened to Nexus and North Star? I thought those two were two of the best bands from the 2000 festival, but it was like they both vanished off the face of the Earth after that.

BTW, whatever happened to ... North Star? I thought those two were two of the best bands from the 2000 festival, but it was like they both vanished off the face of the Earth after that.

In the intervening years, both of the Leonard brothers have passed, unfortunately. The only way something else is coming out is if they have a curator who wants to release archival material. Don't look for it.

"If you want to see the true nature of humanity, just look at the internet."

In the intervening years, both of the Leonard brothers have passed, unfortunately.

Glenn Leonard passed away in 2013, 13 years after NEARfest. Looking at their FB page, in the wake of his death, the remaining members of the band worked on a final album for release in 2015. Wasn't aware that Kevin Leonard had also passed away - can't seem to find a corroborating source online. Is that really so ?